Oh, I Am Tired

Oh, I am tired.

I’ve been ill all weekend, but it’s more than that. It’s as if, deep in my bones, my body is just saying, enough. I’ve scarcely been able to breathe for almost a week now. I go to work every day, only four hours a day, but it feels like fourteen. I come home exhausted, and all I did was sit at a desk. I survey my house: the dishes need to be done, a few loads of laundry are begging to be washed, maybe the living room needs to be vacuumed. But then I weigh my health to energy ratio, wonder if I have enough in me to do these chores, and if I do, what will it cost me? A night lying on the couch, not being able to move afterward, for sure. In the past hour I’ve taken several steroids for my lungs, I’ve taken migraine medication. I’ve swallowed ibuprofen to help the inflammation around my PEG tube, slathered Vaseline on it to soothe the burns.

Yet I feel no better.

Tears were streaming down my face as I did the dishes. Because I hurt. All the time. And it shouldn’t be so hard to do something as ordinary as the damn dishes.

I’m sitting on my porch with the laptop, watching C on his scooter outside. I can watch him, and I can laugh with him and congratulate him on his bravery when he topples off. But I cannot play with him. So I watch, pretend like I don’t hurt, pretend like it doesn’t hurt to not be able to play with my nearly three year old son. Pretend like he doesn't know his mommy is sick.

I’m crying now, and geez, I rarely cry, now – I’m too jaded. I’m sorry to whinge on this post my friends, but I needed to get the pain and resentment out, so that it doesn’t fester inside, and make me even sicker.

For years I trained my body for deprivation. I prided myself for it, for its lack of need for anything physical. But now I need so much.
And my body refuses it.